It comes to something in this industry when a videogame moves on so very little as to require no change of tagline when reviewed. Twelve short months ago, Ryan King’s imposing fingers tapped out the above Gary Numan reference, full of rage and depression, and the truth is it’s as relevant now as it was then.

Like the Futurama sports commentator, prepare for a by-thenumbers gaming contest with no surprises whatsoever. Designed clearly to sell by the bucketload among the hordes of PS2 owners still grimly clinging onto the last generation, this is a fuzzy, poorly realised, obviously cynical mess that would burn a taste hole in anyone’s DVD rack. You see, the world already has plenty of comical racing outings stashed away – your Burnouts, OutRuns, even Need For Speeds, that knock an effort like this, technically not broken, into such a large cocked hat there’s no escape from it.

What’s more, anyone stumbling upon this review will already know that the difficulty curve is about as smooth as Daniel Craig’s face, that there’s so much rubber-banding going on during the races we swear the links between cars are visible, and that neither its story, nor the way racing events are linked together make any sense at all. It’s just pure inevitability.

Quite apart from this, technical issues borne of porting straight from lesser systems – pop-up, a general fuzziness as might be experienced after one to two medium strength blows to the head – appear as surely as the Sun does every morning (well, if we’re lucky).

So where do we stand exactly? The optimist might state in a world where corporations want to make our children feel every ounce of joy possible from the cast of characters created for the silver screen. Us? Well, that some games spring forth from the devil’s jockstrap, and there’s little you can do about it except grab your revolver, then tell the nurses you’re going for a walk in the woods. You might be able to tell the film’s bright-toothed charm hasn’t quite rubbed off on us. Just run for the hills whatever you do, and don’t buy this. Do we have a deal?

Dave Shaw